i just saw an interview with the director of 2 fast 2 furious, the interviewer asked him what kind of an influence it is that they're making something illegal look so cool, and if they thought about it whilst filming

he looked stoned out of his mind and said that while they were filming, he pretty much said his only desire for it to look cool, and then he just laughed for about 10 seconds

That is so damn funny-"tricked out edition" I rented the "factory edition" a long time ago just to get drunk and laugh my ass off to it. That movie is so funny. I still laugh at the beginning when the synchronized cars hi-jack the truck on the run with...a...harpoon-like grappling hook gun.

i just saw an interview with the director of 2 fast 2 furious, the interviewer asked him what kind of an influence it is that they're making something illegal look so cool, and if they thought about it whilst filming

he looked stoned out of his mind and said that while they were filming, he pretty much said his only desire for it to look cool, and then he just laughed for about 10 seconds

What a fall from grace for the youngest person ever to be Oscar nominated for Best Director.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

i think i'm going to have to blind buy this "tricked out" edition, considering i'm such a big fan of xXx and all.

EDIT: Just to let everybody know... Ravi is fucking awesome.

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The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil’s rain we’ll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, ’cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, ’cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put ’em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put ’em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls

John Singleton was never that great a filmmaker in the first place. I always thought Boyz N the Hood and Higher Learning were both steaming piles of crap. Manipulative, racist, and wanting to say something of importance but not really knowing how. The man gives good black filmmakers like Spike Lee a bad name.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anyone with a Col. Blimp avatar couldn't be anything less.

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""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Well, only if you think that's their one distinguishing feature. I don't put them into the same category just 'cos they're black, just like Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki aren't really comparable just 'cos they're both gay.

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""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

John Singleton was never that great a filmmaker in the first place. I always thought Boyz N the Hood and Higher Learning were both steaming piles of crap. Manipulative, racist, and wanting to say something of importance but not really knowing how. The man gives good black filmmakers like Spike Lee a bad name.

nah. i loved boyz in the hood.

john singleton has been such a huge inspiration, or encouragement rather on my own film career. i think about him a lot, especially when im all down and depressed about making movies and whatnot. it's like, okay, this dude not only wrote and directed a movie at my age but even was nominated for an oscar! so it is possible. but to see this 2 fast 2 furious racing honda civic shit, it's kinda sad. its one thing if a director has a long list of winners in his filmography and just wants to take a break and do something fun I guess. Who knows.

just like Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki aren't really comparable just 'cos they're both gay.

black ppl are a race, and were enslaved for hundreds of years.

Right, but that has nothing to do with what I said. The race of Spike Lee and John Singleton is not their one distinguishing feature, nor is the sexual orientation of gay people theirs. You could call Spike Lee and John Singleton both "black directors" without saying much about them or their work; same for Haynes and Araki. What I'm saying is that it's reductive and not really very descriptive to make these distinctions without expanding or qualifying them. I think it's wrong to say that John Singleton makes Spike Lee look bad just because they're both black, just like it would be wrong to say Gregg Araki makes Todd Haynes look bad because they're both gay. That's a simplistic way to think.

Just speaking up against reductiveness, here, which should've been perfectly clear. Your post was a little defensive. I'm not sure what was meant by it.

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""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

I think it's wrong to say that John Singleton makes Spike Lee look bad just because they're both black,

i agree with that.

i think what i was trying to say, maybe irrelevantly, is that black directors hav more blackness in their films than gay directors hav gayness. and that there is more depth to being black than to being gay.

I think it's wrong to say that John Singleton makes Spike Lee look bad just because they're both black,

i agree with that.

i think what i was trying to say, maybe irrelevantly, is that black directors hav more blackness in their films than gay directors hav gayness. and that there is more depth to being black than to being gay.

They're two quite separate histories of oppression (unless you're both black and gay), and I agree that black people have historically have had much more direct and brutal oppression than gay people have. Sexuality is much more easily denied and hidden (if you're forced to) than ethnicity is. But I think the degree of blackness or gayness in the films of a black or gay director has everything to do with the individual person. There was less blackness in From Hell than there was gayness in Far from Heaven, for example.

I just hate putting people in little groups. It's presumptuous at best. I like much of Spike Lee, am not terribly familiar with John Singleton, like some of what I've seen of the Hughes brothers, like most of Todd Haynes, can't stand Gregg Araki, and I'd like to think none of those opinions are based on characteristics like race and sexuality that have little to do with talent and flair for filmmaking.

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""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Well, only if you think that's their one distinguishing feature. I don't put them into the same category just 'cos they're black, just like Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki aren't really comparable just 'cos they're both gay.

The difference here is Todd Haynes and Spike Lee are brilliant. John Singleton is not. I don't know about Gregg Araki. And it's interesting that Haynes is gay. I didn't know that until you said it, but I've noticed that the way he treats women in his films is always more noteworthy than most other directors, just like Altman and Anderson. There are a lot of complaints about misogyny in films, but these three will never be guilty of it.

The problem I have with Singleton is he makes "black films." Films that try to make you feel sorry for black people, because of how the white man has oppressed him; films with unrealistic characters who act in unrealistic ways. And any film that fades in to a Stop sign after reeling off statistics on violence you know is going to be a horrible, pretentious one.

Lee makes "people films;" films that everyone can relate to. He has one blemish I can find on his record: the horrible, racist Malcom X, glorifying one of the most racist men in history. I often shudder to think what would happen if Farrakhan gets gunned down. We'd be subjected to Malcolm X II or something. Other than that, he has a great track record.

The distinguishing features of Lee and Singleton, besides race, are the films they make and the quality thereof. Lee makes brilliant films. Singleton does not.

i just saw an interview with the director of 2 fast 2 furious, the interviewer asked him what kind of an influence it is that they're making something illegal look so cool, and if they thought about it whilst filming

he looked stoned out of his mind and said that while they were filming, he pretty much said his only desire for it to look cool, and then he just laughed for about 10 seconds

What a fall from grace for the youngest person ever to be Oscar nominated for Best Director.